Brief Game Reviews: Forza Motorsport 4: Essentials Edition

I played Forza 3 and had a really good time with it. What I specifically remember being fun was before a race, going into a menu and upgrading parts in your car, then participating in the race and smoking the competition.

Well, Forza Motorsport 4 takes this fun away. Before a race, you have to go back a menu to upgrade car parts. Worse still, even after upgrading your car, the game is going to ask to automatically upgrade your car to fit the specifications of the race before the race. This takes half the fun out of car simulator games: speccing your car to have the best performance it can have.

Because this is the Essentials Edition, there are cars you really want to drive (read: Ferrari California) that are locked behind a paywall. Unlock the full game to drive any car you like… well, except for the ones that are DLC. I miss the days when you’d go to the game store and get a full game out of the box.

I can’t be too hard on this game. The joy of racing cars you will probably (possibly) never drive in real life is still there. But I remember Forza 3 being a better game all throughout.2/5